Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: tinyron on June 08, 2009, 07:39:25 PM

Title: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 08, 2009, 07:39:25 PM
Hi Guys, My Name is Ron From Australia and am having problems getting my steppers moving. I had problem previously with a add on parallel port card that Hood helped me out with, Thanks Hood. Now have a new mother board with a built on parallel port and have configured the port and the pins step and Dir as per the mach 3 manual. I have a mechtronics 4 axis breakout board (www.easy-cnc.com for the manual)and 4 japan servo hybrid steppers which i wish to put on a plasma cutter. I have configured the pins and direction for the motors and configured for mach driver test and all seems to be working ok there. I have learnt to read and write g code over the last month and simulating it on Mach 3 with great success but have had nothing to do with the nuts of cnc setup. I am a toolmaker by trade with little electronics knowledge. When the power is turned on the motors briefly pulse and that is all I can get out of them. They get really hot after about an hour of testing. I have set the on board current set up to the the 1.8A for the motors as per there spec sheet. I have set the steps on the motor tuning to 2000.

I do not get any signal on the port 1 pins state. Pulse freq is about 33500 with kernel speed of 35000

Port is 378 as per the get port address function Hood put me on to and motor outputs are as per the mechtronics manual.

I am obviously missing something or have not checked or unchecked a box somewhere.

Does anyone have any Ideas to get me started? Thanks Guys.
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 08, 2009, 08:19:39 PM
I have done some testing and found that i am geting 4.8v on pin 2 an 0 on pin 3 and 2.2v on pins 4,5,6,7,8,9 whilst the system is running.
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: woffler on June 08, 2009, 09:00:42 PM
Please answer this when all your power is on do your motor spindles lock up or are they easiy turned .
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 08, 2009, 09:07:33 PM
Hi Woffler, thanks for the reply. the motors are locked up when the power is on and free to turn when the power is off
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: Chip on June 08, 2009, 11:10:04 PM
Hi, Tinyron

Re-Check that your settings are exactly as Pic 1, Including Step Port's & Dir Port's, Also set to "1".

Next, Try Pic 2, Sherline 1/2 Step Mode.

If it still doesn't work, Check in Device Manager settings per pic 3.

Chip
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 09, 2009, 12:31:11 AM
Thanks Chip, I went through the screens you sent but nothing seemed to work. All settings were as you had described except for the sherline half step that did nothing so left it as it was. There has to be something that I have missed somewhere. I have been through all the documentation again  and there is something i am overlooking.
Thanks again Chip. Where are you from?
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: Chip on June 09, 2009, 12:39:47 AM
Hi, Tinyron

Gainesville, Florida, Where are you, Re-Read your post. Get "Skype" and give me a Call some time.

Guess I need to get my Globe out, You must be in the south, Thought you Guy's were nearer to the Equator.

Try this little program for testing, Hera's a Link, http://www.geekhideout.com/

Chip
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 09, 2009, 12:50:33 AM
Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Bet the weather is better than here at the moment. 9deg C and wet and windy.
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: Chip on June 09, 2009, 01:29:57 AM
Hi, Tinyron

Try setting your Low Actives to "Checked", Are you sure your Parallel Cable is a known good one, Sometimes the Port or Cable Mfr's leave out allot of Gnd pin connection's.

I read back through your other post's, Were you ever able to get Mach running on the other Computer. ?

Post your Mach3Mill.xml File or the Profile your loading/using, It's in C:\Mach3 Folder, Should be the newest xml in the folder.

Chip
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: Hood on June 09, 2009, 04:05:25 AM
Hi Ron,
 can you test direct on the Port that if you connect a volt meter between  a Dir pin and Gnd then jog one way or the other the voltage changes 0 to 5v and vice versa. Do that on all Dir pins.
 Hood
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 09, 2009, 05:00:07 AM
aye Hood How you going? I have voltages but they're all over the place. step pin on x is 4.3v direction pin @ 0.9v dont quite know how to jog in plasma yet but have ran a file i created on g code and voltages are constant on x but vary on y and z might look at chnging pin addresses
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: Hood on June 09, 2009, 05:10:41 AM
I would imagine you just use left/right Up/Down arrow keys for jogging X and Y and Pg Up/Pg Dn for Z.
 The voltages  could be right if they are constantly changing if it is the Step pins as they will be pulses so a voltmeter will only read the average and how much that is will depend on the speed of the jog/motion. The Dir pins however should either be 5v or 0v, your 4.3V is close enough to 5 :0

Its best to start at the port with the cable disconnected then if that checks out put the cable in to the port and again check at the other end, that way you know what is coming out the port and then getting to the breakout, testing while running at the breakout output will just tell you if there is a problem somewhere but you wont know where.
Hood
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 09, 2009, 05:58:16 AM
Hi Hood, Have check continuity of the cable and all is good. am going through the motions of testing the signals but not being able to jog makes it a bit hard. How do I get the jog working to test out the motion?
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 09, 2009, 06:39:08 AM
EUREKA I have movment. Well y and z movements. Have found out how to jog and it seems that I now have a problem with the port on the mother board. Step gives me 4.3 volts and dir 0.09 and changes to 0.091 when a direction is enteredwith the jog. Has any one come accross this before?
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 09, 2009, 07:32:03 AM
I Have now movement on all axis although they do not correspond to the board. Axis X is axis Z on the board, Axis z is axis A on the board and Y is Y on the board. Cannot seem to get x to work of the board. I have changed the pin addresses on the Motor output and nothing seems to get me there.  The Problem was not the mother board but the wrong pins. Has any one had this trouble?
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: Hood on June 09, 2009, 09:07:50 AM
Looks like you are gettig there :) afraid I have never seen or used one of these drivers so dont know what to advise except maybe contacting the suppliers.
Hood
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: tinyron on June 09, 2009, 07:31:00 PM
Hi Guys Thanks for your help it is much appreciated. Still have not resolved the issue of the wrong axis configuration but will persist. Am Happy for the moment to see things rotating almost as they should. Still have a bit more fine tuning with the motors. It is great to know that there is a support base like this. I hope I can contribute to others once I have learnt a bit more about the wholle CNC bizzo.
Title: Re: Can Anyone Help? Motors not moving
Post by: brightstarwwcnc on June 28, 2009, 04:02:55 PM
Hi,

Don't know if you've solved the problem yet, but I had the same problem and discovered I had not wired up the enable pin to 5v when I initially set up my break out board.

I hope this helps.

Don